Karl Rahner
@rahner.bsky.social
Dedicated to promoting the work of the greatest theologian of the twentieth century.
“The most personal of existential factors, and the most metaphysical at the same time, is that which Thomas has expressed in these words: Adoro te devote latens Deitas, quae sub his figuris vere latitas.” - "Thomas Aquinas on Truth"
February 3, 2026 at 11:14 PM
“The most personal of existential factors, and the most metaphysical at the same time, is that which Thomas has expressed in these words: Adoro te devote latens Deitas, quae sub his figuris vere latitas.” - "Thomas Aquinas on Truth"
"The Christian ethos does not basically consist in the respecting of objective norms imposed by God on reality. All structures of things are lower than man. He can alter them, bend them as far as possible; he is their master and not their servant."
February 3, 2026 at 12:05 AM
"The Christian ethos does not basically consist in the respecting of objective norms imposed by God on reality. All structures of things are lower than man. He can alter them, bend them as far as possible; he is their master and not their servant."
"Only a lover is able to pronounce the word 'heart' with understanding, and only one who is lovingly united to the crucified Lord knows what is meant when the 'Heart of Jesus' is spoken of. But even the word 'heart' itself opens up to the lover new paths for his love which can never love enough."
January 30, 2026 at 6:26 PM
"Only a lover is able to pronounce the word 'heart' with understanding, and only one who is lovingly united to the crucified Lord knows what is meant when the 'Heart of Jesus' is spoken of. But even the word 'heart' itself opens up to the lover new paths for his love which can never love enough."
"The celebration of the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, the patron saint of theological studies, is not only a spiritual-historical remembering. What we are doing or should be doing here as Christians is also a matter of engaging with the communion of saints. Those in heaven are not dead."
January 28, 2026 at 1:32 PM
"The celebration of the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, the patron saint of theological studies, is not only a spiritual-historical remembering. What we are doing or should be doing here as Christians is also a matter of engaging with the communion of saints. Those in heaven are not dead."
“The thought of earlier generations, even if it has had results in the form of conciliar definitions, is not a sort of couch for the thought of later generations. Definitions are much less an end than a beginning. A Hic Rhodus. An opening. No real achievement is ever lost to the Church.”
January 21, 2026 at 6:49 PM
“The thought of earlier generations, even if it has had results in the form of conciliar definitions, is not a sort of couch for the thought of later generations. Definitions are much less an end than a beginning. A Hic Rhodus. An opening. No real achievement is ever lost to the Church.”
"Even today one can continue to discuss the morality of the pill and whether women a hundred years from now will still be excluded from the office of the priesthood. But if theologians want to live in the Church with the theology they want to live with..."
January 19, 2026 at 3:45 PM
"Even today one can continue to discuss the morality of the pill and whether women a hundred years from now will still be excluded from the office of the priesthood. But if theologians want to live in the Church with the theology they want to live with..."
"A university science would demean itself it it were to measure its ultimate value by the yardstick of commercial utility. Truth is under no obligation to vindicate itself to purely pragmatic or financial interests." – "Theology Today", Theological Investigations XXI
January 18, 2026 at 4:35 PM
"A university science would demean itself it it were to measure its ultimate value by the yardstick of commercial utility. Truth is under no obligation to vindicate itself to purely pragmatic or financial interests." – "Theology Today", Theological Investigations XXI
"What is it that makes the properly historical in studies like those of de Lubac or de la Taille so stimulating and to the point? Surely it is the art of reading texts in such a way that the ybecome not just votes cast in favor of our against our current positions (positions taken up long ago)..."
January 17, 2026 at 12:09 AM
"What is it that makes the properly historical in studies like those of de Lubac or de la Taille so stimulating and to the point? Surely it is the art of reading texts in such a way that the ybecome not just votes cast in favor of our against our current positions (positions taken up long ago)..."
"...I do not think that computers could be built for theology to any significant degree, chiefly because no-one would know how to programme them." - "The Historicity of Theology", Theological Investigations IX
January 16, 2026 at 11:27 PM
"...I do not think that computers could be built for theology to any significant degree, chiefly because no-one would know how to programme them." - "The Historicity of Theology", Theological Investigations IX
"[Christ’s] created human nature is the indispensable and permanent gateway through which everything created must pass if it is to find the perfection of its eternal validity before God…"
November 20, 2025 at 8:31 PM
"[Christ’s] created human nature is the indispensable and permanent gateway through which everything created must pass if it is to find the perfection of its eternal validity before God…"
"What was striking in [Pier Giorgio Frassati] was his purity, his radiant joy, his piety, the ‘freedom of the children of God’ with regard to all that is beautiful in the world, his social sense, his consciousness of sharing the life and destiny of the Church."
September 17, 2025 at 12:58 PM
"What was striking in [Pier Giorgio Frassati] was his purity, his radiant joy, his piety, the ‘freedom of the children of God’ with regard to all that is beautiful in the world, his social sense, his consciousness of sharing the life and destiny of the Church."
"In the face of negative experiences the question is very quickly asked: Shall I still remain in the Church? The question drives me 'crazy.' For me as a believer it is in the last analysis meaningless."
July 31, 2025 at 5:28 PM
"In the face of negative experiences the question is very quickly asked: Shall I still remain in the Church? The question drives me 'crazy.' For me as a believer it is in the last analysis meaningless."
“The cross of the Lord is the revelation of what sin really is. The cross of Christ mercilessly reveals what the world hides from itself: that it, as it were, devours the Son of God in the insane blindness of its sin—a sin in which Godless hate is truly set on fire upon contact with the love of God”
April 14, 2025 at 12:14 AM
“The cross of the Lord is the revelation of what sin really is. The cross of Christ mercilessly reveals what the world hides from itself: that it, as it were, devours the Son of God in the insane blindness of its sin—a sin in which Godless hate is truly set on fire upon contact with the love of God”
"Consequently we know nothing except that man was created by God as God’s personal partner in a sacred history of salvation and perdition; that concupiscence and death do not belong to man as God wills him to be, but to man as a sinner..."
March 31, 2025 at 1:18 PM
"Consequently we know nothing except that man was created by God as God’s personal partner in a sacred history of salvation and perdition; that concupiscence and death do not belong to man as God wills him to be, but to man as a sinner..."
"Everyone knows that the Church in the exercise of her pastoral office, in her legislation, administration, adaptation to the requirements of the age, pastoral practice, in her activity in art, learning and the shaping of Christian life in practice..."
March 23, 2025 at 5:48 PM
"Everyone knows that the Church in the exercise of her pastoral office, in her legislation, administration, adaptation to the requirements of the age, pastoral practice, in her activity in art, learning and the shaping of Christian life in practice..."
"Theological pluralism does not permit us to tolerate anything and everything. Credal profession and theology have a mutual relationship to each other, and they cannot be neatly distinguished from each other in concrete cases..."
January 15, 2025 at 5:49 PM
"Theological pluralism does not permit us to tolerate anything and everything. Credal profession and theology have a mutual relationship to each other, and they cannot be neatly distinguished from each other in concrete cases..."
"If one is a Christian, one very definitely has the duty of not being under any illusions about this magical Christmas spirit. For a Christian cannot be a person who hides the pitiful reality of human life under pious phrases. By God, she cannot."
December 25, 2024 at 9:35 PM
"If one is a Christian, one very definitely has the duty of not being under any illusions about this magical Christmas spirit. For a Christian cannot be a person who hides the pitiful reality of human life under pious phrases. By God, she cannot."
"Dogmas have very differing degrees of importance. Of course, my faith in Jesus Christ means much more to me than the teaching of the FIrst Vatican Council about the pope. The first is very important to me; the other is secondary, which is not to say it does not bind."
December 19, 2024 at 1:28 AM
"Dogmas have very differing degrees of importance. Of course, my faith in Jesus Christ means much more to me than the teaching of the FIrst Vatican Council about the pope. The first is very important to me; the other is secondary, which is not to say it does not bind."
"Marriage is not the act in which two individuals come
together to form a ‘we’, a relationship in which they set themselves apart from the ‘all’ and close themselves against this. Rather it is the act in which a ‘we’ is constituted which opens itself lovingly precisely to all."
together to form a ‘we’, a relationship in which they set themselves apart from the ‘all’ and close themselves against this. Rather it is the act in which a ‘we’ is constituted which opens itself lovingly precisely to all."
November 30, 2024 at 3:54 PM
"Marriage is not the act in which two individuals come
together to form a ‘we’, a relationship in which they set themselves apart from the ‘all’ and close themselves against this. Rather it is the act in which a ‘we’ is constituted which opens itself lovingly precisely to all."
together to form a ‘we’, a relationship in which they set themselves apart from the ‘all’ and close themselves against this. Rather it is the act in which a ‘we’ is constituted which opens itself lovingly precisely to all."
"What needs to be stressed is that the fact that there have been periods in which there was no actual eucharistic devotion outside the sacrifice of the Mass cannot be a valid argument against such devotions being genuinely Christian."
November 22, 2024 at 3:22 PM
"What needs to be stressed is that the fact that there have been periods in which there was no actual eucharistic devotion outside the sacrifice of the Mass cannot be a valid argument against such devotions being genuinely Christian."
"Abstraction is the revelation of being as such which places man before God; conversion is the entrance into the here and now of this finite world, and this makes God the distant Unknown. Abstraction and conversion are the same thing for Thomas: man."
November 14, 2024 at 6:02 PM
"Abstraction is the revelation of being as such which places man before God; conversion is the entrance into the here and now of this finite world, and this makes God the distant Unknown. Abstraction and conversion are the same thing for Thomas: man."
"Have we ever actually experienced grace? We do not mean by this some pious feeling, a sort of festive religious uplift, or any soft comfort, but precisely the experiencing of grace, i.e. of that visitation by the Holy Spirit of the triune God..."
November 13, 2024 at 5:39 PM
"Have we ever actually experienced grace? We do not mean by this some pious feeling, a sort of festive religious uplift, or any soft comfort, but precisely the experiencing of grace, i.e. of that visitation by the Holy Spirit of the triune God..."
“Prayer can be like a slow interior bleeding, in which grief and sorrow make the heart’s-blood of the inner man trickle away silently into his own unfathomable depths.” — “Encounters with Silence”
November 10, 2024 at 5:10 PM
“Prayer can be like a slow interior bleeding, in which grief and sorrow make the heart’s-blood of the inner man trickle away silently into his own unfathomable depths.” — “Encounters with Silence”
"The living personal God has spoken to man in Christianity, that is in Jesus Christ. With that a frightening reality has entered into the life of man, which renders impossible any attempt on the part of a human existence attuned to a world closed in upon itself to enter into God."
November 6, 2024 at 10:31 PM
"The living personal God has spoken to man in Christianity, that is in Jesus Christ. With that a frightening reality has entered into the life of man, which renders impossible any attempt on the part of a human existence attuned to a world closed in upon itself to enter into God."